There’s a quote I’ve heard multiple times regarding people who dive into something new:

“You can recognize a pioneer by the arrows in his back.” – Beverly Rubik, Ph.D., scientist, educator, author

This quote is about the people who tear down all of the obstacles for others to follow. They’re like the Amazon guides in the Brazilian rainforest hacking through the brush so others have a path to follow. Their job is sometimes hard. They are forced to go into situations where few have been before and just having to figure it out on the fly. They have few reference points to go from and have to think on their feet.

The empowr project has been like a long journey into a rainforest

Attempting to create something this ambitious -- with a commitment to never accept capital from investors so that the platform could belong to and be controlled by the platform’s users -- has meant that we’ve needed to be resourceful.

We needed to invent solutions every time an obstacle appeared that didn’t seem to have an immediate solution.

The pioneers get the arrows

Often, the arrows come from people that don’t understand a new invention because, of course, they haven’t seen it before. If they had seen it, well, it wouldn’t be a new invention, would it?

The arrows often come in the form criticism.

Sometimes an insult, a damnation, calling the invention a hoax, a trick, a scam.

Indeed, “scam” appears to be one of the top favorite 4-letter words that comes to some people’s minds when they don’t understand something and need a quick way to post something on the web that helps them communicate:

· -- This makes me mad because I don’t understand it

· -- I don’t even think it’s a real thing because I’ve never seen or heard of this before

· -- I don’t trust their intentions. This must be a scam.

The scam of apps

Instead of employing many application developers, the empowr community invented the idea of enabling and asking others to build apps for the empowr platform.

Almost immediately, a number of application developers called the idea a scam. “Why would I want to write code for someone else’s social network? What a scam.”

Today, no one questions the benefit of apps – to a platform – to developers -- or to consumers.

What was once called a scam by (quite literally) hundreds of people -- sending such comments to empowr or posting them all over the web -- is now used by virtually every social media platform in existence.

The idea happily lives on as U.S. patent number 20090063178 A1. View patent

Question: Can you even imagine your mobile phone without apps?

The scam of address book import

With not having a marketing budget, an empowr community member had the idea that the company should develop the ability for users to sign into their web-based address books (such as on Hotmail, Yahoo mail etc.) and invite their friends with just a few clicks.

The idea was for users to simply provide their email login and password and the empowr platform would show them their address book. With just one click, users could send an invitation to some or all of their contacts.

At first, about 1 percent of people that successfully provided their login and password to import their contacts hit the “send” button without paying attention or quite understanding what they were doing.

Afterwards, some of that small percentage suggested that empowr must have hacked into Hotmail or Yahoo’s email systems to access their address book contacts.

A scam indeed -- if it were actually true.

Today, every web portal of any significance in the world uses this technology to allow their users to import and invite friends.

Indeed, this approach was THE way that Facebook grew to what it is today. Just try registering for a new Facebook account and -- on the very next page -- Facebook will ask you for your email login and password to invite your friends from your web-based address book.

But back then, when empowr was first to do this, you might think that empowr was the devil, based on what a very vocal group of people – who had never thought of or seen such functionality – were posting all over the web.

On a related note: Aside from some people calling the invention a scam, a much larger number of people actually loved the invention. As a result, empowr broke the world record for fastest product customer ramp in history – shattering the earlier records set by Hotmail and Napster as reported by USA Today, CNBC and Fast Company.See for yourself

The scam of mobile billing

Once upon a time, most web users didn’t have credit cards or any other way to pay for things electronically.

Without offering users the ability to pay for things electronically, empowr wouldn’t be able to build an economy. And of course, at its core, an economy is what empowr is.

Among many other ideas, the community had the idea of allowing users to use their mobile phone numbers as if they were credit cards.

Doing that would require permission and integration with mobile phone companies around the world, an incredibly difficult challenge for any company.

empowr tried for many years to convince mobile phone companies around the world to allow it to plug into their billing systems and – finally, after many years – it started to have success.

Just like the “address book import” invention, here too some users (about 1 percent of those who tried it) couldn’t believe their eyes when charges (for services they signed up for) actually ended on their mobile phone bills.

Question: So, what did about 1 percent of those first users do?

You guessed it: They called it (and empowr) a scam.

Today, mobile billing is commonplace and everyone’s seen it.

It generates billions of dollars for hundreds of tech companies such as Apple and Google, all social networking companies and all mobile phone companies around the world. It’s a convenient way for consumers to pay for apps on their phones, as well as conduct transactions within apps.

empowr’s mobile billing “scam” is honored by the industry as U.S. patent number 20080233918 A1. View patent

Did you know?

Back then, the governments of almost every country on the planet reached out to empowr for guidance on how to regulate the new mobile data space, prompting empowr to author the “Mobile user bill of rights,” which was eventually adopted by virtually all regulatory agencies in the world?Check it out

The scam of virtual currency

empowr needed a new form of money – an electronic form of money – so that people could more easily exchange things of value.

The invention? Virtual currency.

Today, the world is abuzz with excitement about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

But just a few months ago, Bitcoin was being called a scam by lots of people – even by the CEO of Chase Bank: “Bitcoin is a fraud” – Jamie Dimon, CEO, JPMorgan Chase

Bitcoin is simply virtual currency – another invention of empowr. Says who? Says the United States Patent and Trademark Office: U.S. patent number 008036685 A3.View patent

The scam of “Use Advertising NOW, pay LATER”

How do most large web portals (such as Google and Facebook) generate most of their revenues? By opening up their website’s economic opportunities to large corporations. That is, by selling advertising.

That means that, fundamentally, those companies are in the business of unlocking economic opportunity to corporations.

With almost the exact opposite approach, empowr was created to unlock economic opportunity for ordinary people, not corporations.

To stay true to that mission, empowr has never allowed corporations to purchase advertising in empowr – ensuring that the entire ad inventory is exclusively available for consumers to utilize.

But unlike corporations, most consumers don’t have large budgets to spend on advertising. So, what can empowr do to help them?

empowr has been testing a way for consumers to use advertising now but pay for those ads later – after they’ve had a chance to earn revenues using those ads.

How has the testing of this product proceeded, thus far?

At first, everyone loves the product! As they see their earnings grow, before paying for ads, well, it’s breathtaking.

Later, when the charges actually need to be paid, well, there seems to always be that 1 percent that become upset.

And so, once again, that 1% that cannot understand how they can get charged for something that they were allowed to use for free -- even after they agreed to "Use ads now and pay later" -- are concluding that empowr must be a scam.

The result?

After trying everything -- for nearly 3 years -- the empowr community has decided that it simply cannot help that 1% to either understand the "pay later" part, or choose to simply not use the product.

Therefore - as of late 2017 - this innovation has been shut down for ALL new citizens that are signing up. It's really very sad: 99% of new users suffer because of the 1%, but unfortunately this is the reality we must live with.

And now, the biggest scam of all?

Today, the empowr community of citizens, success coaches and employees are busy attempting to do what MANY people have said cannot be done: Completing the building and fusing together of a social network, a marketplace, cryptocurrency, an educational system, transportation system and political system.

Imagine if Facebook merged with eBay, and then the combined company merged with Uber, and then a bank, and then a university -- and perhaps even a country (so that it could use their political system).

Now, imagine if the entirety of that combined company and product was owned and controlled by the platform’s users, not rich investors – both the company and its currency: 100 percent owned by the people it serves.

That is precisely what the empowr community is attempting to pull off today.

Wait a minute:

This community thinks it can build ALL of that without a penny in investor capital...

... when the companies empowr’s looking to displace have EACH accepted billions of dollars from investors to build their products?

"That's impossible. What a scam!"

The road ahead

How will it go? We’re not quite sure.

But here’s what we are confident about:

·We’ll give it all we’ve got

·We will make mistakes. We’ll likely fail a few times on the road to each “success”

·We will likely be called some bad names by a small number of people. Those will hurt

·We’ll get up each time we’re knocked down

·We won’t stop trying until we succeed

Do you consider yourself a big thinker? An "early adopter"?

Are you able to sometimes believe in what you can’t see right in front of you?

If you answered “no” to one or more of those questions, may we suggest that empowr may not be for you – at least not right now, at this moment? If you come back in just a year or two -- after we’ve had a chance to iron out some issues – empowr might be perfect for you. (We suggest that you go here for now).

And if you answered “yes” well, you just might find yourself right at home with the people that are currently engaged with this platform.

Can you imagine….

…personally playing a growing and important role in the creation of a world that has less injustice, more equality and a better future for humanity?

Together, if we can succeed in our mission to help billions of individuals – people that live on $2 or less per day – to live a better life, would it all have been worth it?

If you can picture that future, we think you’ll agree that any level of effort, any number of arrows and short-term pain will have ultimately amounted to an acceptable price to pay.

With your help, we’re now closer than ever to accomplishing that mission.

Welcome to the jungle

The journey won’t always be smooth.

In fact, it will most certainly be bumpy since we’re not done roaming the roads less traveled – or the roads never traveled before.

You’ll likely get a few arrows in your back. Those will hurt. Think you can handle it?

Perhaps it won’t hurt as bad as it might seem like it will, because we now have a support system of literally thousands of people who, over time, little by little, have become accustomed to receiving those arrows.

So you won't be alone. The empowr community will be there for you, to help pull out the arrows from your back.

455 CommentsSort:

Thank you, JC, for this nothing but the truth, and heartfelt words.💕We are and will be here for each other, to take those arrows and help pull any arrows out of each other back, and move forward to the road that no human has ever been before.

Yes, dear May, we are all-heatedly with you in this holy war to fight the unjust doubt on empowr
And thank you JC. This post will indeed act as a powerful anti-weapon to counter the back arrows shot by those 1 percent ignorant minority!

Very well said JC and May. Thank you for addressing this never ending issues that these 1% of skeptics keeps hurling at Empowr. Rest assured that we are 100% behind this Empowr mission and we will always get back up in spite of all these arrows being hurled at us. We will not stop until we succeed.

I agree Carlos lets turn those arrows into tools for everyone...for or countries to use

Hello JC

Any idea on when the countries will go live or when we could receive some of the tools/bonuses your offering SC's to recruit more people to the countries we've created.
****Right now under the rules, you must give up building your country if you become an SC to take advantage of those tools and resources, bonuses.

I really think these countries can become your elite teams to help build empowr by allowing their creators to become/be trained as a SC for their country so that all of their citizens become their SC's students.

I can deal with arrows better when I expect them thanks for the reminder of this pattern for 1% to criticize what they don't understand. I especially appreciate all of patents and evidence that empowr has been in the "game changing" business for some time. I'm proud to be a member of a community who always gets up and never stops before succeeding!

I thought so too, but when I read these patents, I changed my mind.
Have you read the last legal event of the first patent reference? Know what that means?
Now do you understand where the arrows are coming from?

I ask you to wake up, you can not just say that we will win. It is necessary to do something real, that the system would continue to work and there would be no last legal event "dead". Nobody hears me alone. Maybe someone will hear that.

Good exposure on a past full of imnovacionones and a future full of hopes. Thank you all we are together in this and we must help each other to make the Empowr community more supportive, empathic, attractive and of course bigger

What a write-up.
I never knew that empowr was this ever great; having to provide guidance and direction to the world in many ways as confirmed by the patents in our kitty.
It is great to be here at this time. Together we shall smoothen all the rough edges on our way to accomplishing our mission and vision.

Great explanation, thank you, JC for putting it into such wonderful and easy to understand way :) Very helpful! "When we take risks we learn that there will be times when we succeed and there will be times when we fail, and both are equally important"

Step by step empowr is progressing towards it's goals, the future is bright! A beautiful post JC and much appreciated to have your personal words of wisdom for those in doubt. It is hopefully clear to all from this that it is the time to give our greatest efforts to support empowr.

Thank you for providing this post that we can share with those who think that anything new is bad and should be avoided. The empowr mission is not an easy one, and there will be many arrows as we head further into areas where no-one has gone before.

It fills me with pride and happiness reading this post. Proud and happy to be part of this endeavor hacking a new path in the jungle to open up the future of a better world for so many in dire circumstances now. Let them come, those arrows. I may be an idealist but I have my feet on the ground and investigate things thoroughly before assuming I understood it without reading. Greed is a mortal sin and few are able to admit they fell prey to that. Blaming others is far easier.

This is indeed so. Everything new is always perceived with great distrust. Could we imagined 30 years ago that we can talk on the phone in the forest and many other things? Therefore, citizens empowr - let's believe and support our empowr. Through hardship to the stars!

My Aba(father) always said ...life is not a bed of roses... same as when we try to achieve something in a different way.. we face hate, difficulties.. disappointment , blames but we should be faithful .. if we want to win

Thanks JC for the encouraging words. We will make it through because we have in the past. Having had almost 4 years experience with empowr, I see that challenges ahead of us as nothing compared to how things were in the past. I choose to 100% stand with the empowr community until we achieve our Mission. Long Live empowr!

Thank you, JC, for everything you do for us, and I will definitely use these messages for all those who doubt empowr! I believe that all of us together will come to success in empowr. Good luck to all of us and patience.

Hi, Jonny, My answer to the two questions is "Yes" I've 10 years experience as an empowr citizen and I've 100% believe in empowr, ready for everything, the big picture of future is towards me and no doubt we’re now closer than ever to accomplishing that mission.

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